March 31, 2008

It seems odd calling all these events festivals when they are a short single day/night affair, with only a few areas/stages. Nothing like the multi-day festivals OS.

There’s lots of room to grow the V-Festival if Richard Branson is happy to keep throwing $ at it. I can’t see it ever getting bigger than The Big Day Out, probably a good thing.

There were not many acts playing that I was that interested in and desperate to see, but I went along anyway to check it out, my first V-Festival, always nice to hang with friends.

This is the first time I’ve been to a big music event in Centennial Park, yes… really. It’s a nice location, very green, lots of lush grass. There’s not much shade though with the area/space they used, I mention this because I’m not a fan of ‘fun in the sun’, that’s my idea of hell. Actually that’s one of the reasons I don’t go to many of these big event/festivals. Plus they usually don’t feature much if any of the type of sounds/music I’m into, yeah, I’m hard to please. I much prefer smaller/intimate gigs and side-shows these days anyway. You get a better performance.

We got to V-Festival late, around 5.30pm, not being that keen to see anyone who played earlier. Jesus & The Mary Chain were rocking out as we entered the venue, sounded good but I’m not a fan, and only really know that ‘Head On’ song/single. V-Festival is a very well organised event, no complaints about wait times or lines for entry, toilets, food and drink, it was all quick and easy. Very different situation from the year before I’m told. The crowd seemed chill and friendly, good range of ages, no fluro, certainly not a munt-fest, nice.

The stage setups were impressive, good light shows. There was a nice natural light show happening in the clouds, with a distant thunder storm all night too. Concert sound was big and clear, could have been louder though I felt. I didn’t need my ear-plugs, and had no ringing/deafness afterwards, so probably means the sound was ideal. Some of the sound engineering at times was far from attentive though, with channels coming up late, or not on at all, which lost small details during Air, and with both Air and Duran Duran the main vocals seemed to be lost in the mix. I don’t think they had a centre array of suspended speakers for the vocals, like I’ve seen at other concerts. For the first 1/4 of Duran Duran the guitar level was way too loud, pushing the bass and keyboards too far back in the mix, both being upfront is a key to Duran Duran’s early sound, I notice the Klaxons do the same with their sound, works well.

I was quite happy with our position in the crowd for Air and Duran Duran, being just left of centre, and about 10-15 people back from the front of the stage/barrier when closest. People around seemed friendly, fun, music focused and respectful, which was excellent, makes for a nice change.

Air : I only really know their music from movie soundtracks “The Virgin Suicides” and “Lost In Translation”, and their single ‘Sexy Boy’. They put on a good live show. Great musicians, tight drummer. Lots of tasty old-school synths and electric piano keyboards up on stage in use. They even had a roadie changing patch cables and knobs on an old analogue Korg or Moog mono synth between songs, a human patch changer if you will. Music was very lounge/chill, very French, with that retro-electro vibe. Nice sounds for a sun-set, thankfully a few drops of rain didn’t turn into a shower. They ended their set with a rocking intensity complete with strobe light mayhem, awesome. The kids love those vocoded vocals, or ‘Daft Punk’ robot vocals as they call them, never heard screams and cheers for just a vocal effect before. The kids didn’t seem to have the attention span for a whole set of those down-beat sounds, too much else to see as well. I noticed about 1/2 the crowd left after they played ‘Sexy Boy’, clever of them to have it 3/4 into the set. If you left early you missed the best part of their set, the last 3 tracks were excellent, lots of intensity.

Duran Duran : Not a group I was much of a fan of during the 80s, my best friend Paul Armour was though. I’ve developed more of an appreciation for them and their music over the years through Joanne, who was, and still is a MASSIVE fan. She paid $400 for a VIP (2nd row) ticket to see them the night before as well. Check out her photos here. She’s had a non stop grin on her face since, and is in her Duran Duran obsessed state currently, glued to YouTube watching everything and anything Duran Duran.

I thought Duran Duran played great at V-Festival. They put on a kick-arse live show, and still have lots of energy, impressive at their age and after all the years of 80s excess. They played lots of hits, and there was much crowd love and singing along. It’s great to see they still have that big concert venue/event attraction after all these years. It makes me angry to hear/read people say Duran Duran were hillarious, a parody of themselves, too old, they should give it up, trying to be something their not, blah, blah, blah. Where’s the respect? There are so many other reformed successful 80s groups, only able to play tiny pubs, RSL and casino cabaret shows these days, that’s when you’re a shadow of your former self. Unlike many of the ‘pretty boy’ bands that followed on from Duran Duran’s success, Duran Duran write all their own (damn catchy) songs, play their own instruments, and play them very well. Their own extended/night-versions of songs were a great concept too.

Simon Le Bon’s vocals are still spot on, he’s a great front man, puts on a good show, not bad for a guy around 50 years of age. He still gets the girls (well 30+ year old women) screaming. The new guitarist Dominic Brown is very good, and importantly knows when not to play, unlike original guitarist Andy Taylor (yes I know all their names) who rocked out with non stop, self-indulgent riffs through almost every song, killing them, last time I saw them about 4 years ago. I don’t think he was on the same page musically anymore, sad when an original member leaves a band though.

I was dissapointed not to hear ‘The Reflex’ and my faves ‘A View To A Kill’ and ‘Ordinary World’ probably the songs of theirs I like most. Joanne said they played them all the night before, during their 2 & 1/2 hour concert. I’m not enough of a fan to want to see them twice in a row. Their ‘White Lines’ cover sounded great, I’d forgotten all about that song, woo Grandmaster Flash! One of the new Timbaland/Timberlake co-productions ‘Nite-Runner’ sounded great, very infectious vocals, with a nice big phat 808 kick boom amongst the programmed R’N’B style. It’s scary to say but I don’t mind a few of the songs on their new ‘Red Carpet Massacre’ album. ‘The Chauffeur’ sounded great too, love how it starts off with Nicks strange, haunting synth sounds with just Simon’s vocal, and then the rest of the band joins in much later, taking it to a new level. New song ‘Tempted’ sounded very nu-rave with John Taylor doing his best to look comfortable playing a synth instead of pounding the 4 strings. Having a session backing singer (sexy black chic in black latex), and a saxophonist (awesome musician) doing the sax parts/solos really completed and complimented the sound, it was missing last time I saw them.

All in all a very impressive live show, not much has changed apart from their age. There was much love in the crowd. Duran Duran looked like they enjoyed every second of their performance, nice to see they still have that passion and energy for performing songs they must have played 1000s of times over. A little technical trouble at the start, but once past that it was rocking. Nice one! I’m not that much of a fan… honest.

The Presets : I don’t mind their singles ‘I Go Hard, I Go Home’ and ‘Are You The One?’ but not much of a fan of the rest of their music/albums. We popped over to see a bit of these guys after Duran Duran finished. Watching and eating some hot chips, corn on the cob, and drinking fresh lemonade, whilst hanging at the back. From where we were it didn’t look or sound like a very exciting live show, it might have been different up closer, maybe. Until the last couple of songs, it was all a bit err… boring really. The masses love that new ‘My People’ single, first I’ve actually heard it, it didn’t do much for me. I got to hear ‘I Go Hard, I Go Home’ which they played last, and it sounded great. Laurent Garnier actually played that when he was last in Sydney, a fun train-spotting fact for you there kids, thanks grand-pa, hehe.

I didn’t bother seeing Queens Of The Stone Age, or Smashing Pumpkins not being the type of music/sounds I’m into. Plus they were playing at the same time as Air and Duran Duran at a stage right over the other side of the area/space. I was comfortable where I was with friends. I can imagine there being a much rougher agro/drunk crowd over there anyway.

I was surprised there were not more people on the mass exodus at the end of the event. I later learnt that the stage’s endings were staggered 15 minutes apart, with the furthest stage from the entrance/exit (where we were) finishing last, that’s good organisation.

After a very long walk (with sore feet) to our friend’s car in Bondi Junction (thanks for the lift home Charles & Rowena) via tiger eating at Harry’s Cafe De Wheels our night was over, and over way before midnight, which is unusual.

It’s a great, well run event, if there’s a better line-up next year, I’d be happy to attend again. Depeche Mode and/or Tears For Fears please Rich!

I was disappointed to learn that Troy Pierce has put off his Australian visit for now. I hope that comes together later this year. He plays great sounds, would love to hear him again. One of the best DJs for interesting sounds we saw on our Europe travels last year.

I’m excited to hear that Phonique has been booked to play at Chinese Laundry in early July. He was great at Water-Gate in Berlin last year. However I fear on the same night, Lost Baggage now have Luca Bacchetti who has released some great sounds on the Wagon Repair label, a tough decision.

The ‘We Love Sounds 2008’ line-up is due out any day now. There’s been rumours of Stephan Bodzin, Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Loco Dice, and Luciano… Any of those guys would be great, we’ll have to wait and see, I doubt we’ll get Rich or Ricky.

March 25, 2008

After hearing what Joris played the night before, and never really being a fan of some of the Bread & Butter sounds, I was nervous that this could be 6 hours on a boat with music I’m not into…

However… I had a lot of fun at this. The time went by really quickly, crusing the harbour on the MV Lady Rose from 6.45pm untill midnight. Lots of fun people around, and good to meet some of the new-school techno kids on ITM.

It was great to be able to party on Good Friday in Sydney for once. The local DJ’s playing back to back warming things up in the main room did a fantastic job, lots of great minimal/tech sounds.

I didn’t venture to the decks/rooms above, with the more disko, elektro, and house sounds. It seemed to be where a lot of of the usual Bread & Butter crowd were, friends reported it as being scary/messy up there, hehe.

It was mostly smooth sailing, with the odd moment of wobbling from side to side. At times we got blasted with really cold wind, across the boat, through the dance-floor, blowing my hair everywhere. I’m glad I took my jacket. I love that feeling of still being on the boat, hours after you’re back on land.

Joris Voorn played for 3 hours, from 9pm till the end of the cruise, and played much better at this, than at Lost Baggage the night before. He was still all over the place style/flow wise, but he played much better tracks. Once again he did the turn down the master volume thing before playing, which forced everyone up close to him and the speakers. He’s certainly moved on to a more deep-house sound overall, no more techno.

Some of the tracks Joris played, train-spotted by Wowky, Tad, myself and Marco Vision (Adam Jace) from ITM…

March 24, 2008

Originally we didn’t plan on going to this party, not being fans of the new trance-ish, progressive sound Aril Brikha has moved on to. Then last week Lost Baggage added Dutch techno/tech-house DJ/producer/performer Joris Voorn to the line-up, so we got tickets, which meant we’ll see Joris 2 days in a row, with going to the Bread & Butter boat cruise party with him the following night. We’re big fans of his productions, especially his Rejected stuff. I saw him do a live set at Awakenings in Amsterdam last year as well, for all of 10 minutes, I liked what I heard.

It was a nice surprise for Lost Baggage to also add Layo & Bushwacka to the line-up at the last minute too.

DJing at my friend Tad’s party at The Burdekin at midnight, Happy Birthday Tad! and knowing that Aril wasn’t on until 2am, and Joris on at 3.30am we didn’t get to The Cross until well after 1am.

Sydney techno DJ Claire Morgan was ripping it up in the bump lounge room when we arrived. She played a fantastic set of quality techno music, best set of the night by far. Top work! She’s a really nice person too.

Aril Brikha with his black Mac laptop and controller was up after Claire, doing a ‘live’ set. Right from the start, as expected, his music sounded very progressive and trance-ish, it’s very ‘fluffy’ music. I think this shocked a few of the old-school Detroit techno ‘Departure In Time’ (Aril Brikha album on Transmat from 2000) fans who came out of retirement for the night. He did play a couple of tracks, including the title, and my fave ‘Groove La’Chord’ from that album much later on. It sounded great, exactly like his releases.

I spent the next hour and a half moving back and forth between the bump lounge room with Aril, and the main room with Layo & Bushwacka. Mixing it up back to back, those guys played quite a lot darker and tougher than I was expecting, mixing up a range of minimal, techno, tech-house sounds. I knew quite a few things they played. There were moments that were great, but overall it sounded a bit disjointed, bent and messy, like much of the crowd were. I’m still trying to find my ear after having it chewn off by motor-mouths.

Joris Voorn was up next after Layo & Buchwacka who had been on for 3 hours. The first thing I noticed was how he turned the master volume down, a lot, which made the sound bleed from the bump lounge room very distracting from where I was standing. Not sure if he’s a unity gain perfectionist, is scared of excessive volume, or uses this as a trick to bring people closer to him and the speakers? Usually DJs never turn it down. With lower volume, and what he played, it made him sound very soft in comparision to the sounds on prior.

I was excited and ready for a fantastic set of quality techno/minimal sounds from Joris, having downloaded mp3s of recent DJ sets. But… we got a set of happy, house music, deep-house, diva vocals, progressive, and uplifting tech-house sounds, with the odd minimal track every 20 minutes or so. I didn’t know much of what he played, not being the type of sounds I’m into, all a bit too happy and light for me. It was mixed together perfectly, he was using all CDs I think, but the intensity and track flow was up and down like a yo-yo. I really don’t think he was reading the vibe of the crowd and dance-floor at all. His gestures to clap along and do the ‘hands in the air’ were mostly ignored. We were hoping he may move into more darker, techno type sounds later in his set, but with no change an hour and a half in, and it being now 5am, we left, over it. When you’re a fan of a DJ/producer’s sound and productions, you finally get to see them play, and then they play completely different music it’s always a shock/dissapointment.

After leaving we then had the pain of trying to find a taxi (Good Friday morning) for over an hour, gave up and caught public transport home. It didn’t turn out to be a memorable night.

The Cross is a great venue, and Lost Baggage seem to be doing good things, much thanks to them for putting on all these internationals. I’m really looking forward to the Alex Smoke party (have heard Matthias Tanzmann may be playing also), and then the m_nus 10th year party with Gaiser & Marc Houle both playing live, coming up in early and late May.

March 14, 2008

I recently bought myself a scanner, and have been having a fun trip down memory lane via my collection of old rave & dance party flyers, photos, news paper clippings, and various memorabilia of my time spent in bands and as solo dance/techno acts.

I’ve wanted to put up on-line pages about all this for a long time. I’ve finally got around to it. These are works in progress, edits, more details and mp3s to come.

Check out the links to Bliss, DAMC, and TECHiONE under pages (top right).

March 4, 2008

After flying in from Melbourne at 9pm on Saturday, after a busy couple of days down there, I’m glad we found the energy to head out to this.

Steve Bug was great. I really enjoyed his set, and danced non-stop from start to finish. Not as special as the previous time he played in the cave, but still a great two hours of excellent, tightly mixed, quality music. There was a great groove, and lots of interesting sounds. A nice range of minimal, deep-tech-house, acid, deep-techno tracks, and a great flow between them, which is something that was missing from his set in Melbourne the night before.

There was a great up for it vibe, vocally appreciative and mostly music focused crowd in Chinese Laundry’s cave, a few over excited fan-boys about making fools of themself. Shock, horror… the cave was comfortable on this outing, cool with space to move. It makes a nice change from the packed in like sardines sweat-box experience you often get in the cave at Chinese Laundry, which was the case last week for Gui Boratto [live] I heard.

On Saturday had there been none of those inconsiderate, self absorbed, non music focused, trashy, rude, pushing past, idiots around, whose idea of dancing is to bash or fall into everyone around, it would have been a perfect night. Thankfully there were not that many of them, but enough for me to be mentioning it. I try not to let them spoil my night, however it was difficult to ignore them at the Melbourne party, being a large percentage of the crowd there. In Melbourne it felt like every person in the club was entering and exiting the dance-floor area via pushing into/through us over and over. A.D.D much? Kids these days huh! Clubbing since late 1988 you notice the change.

Back to the music… As usual with Steve Bug sets, he plays heaps of up-front, promo, un-released music. Mixing it up with Traktor Scratch (thanks for the correction) vinyls/interface, Apple laptop with external hard-disc. I only ever know a small amount of what he plays at the time, then find out more months later. Tracks we heard him play in Berlin in July 07, have only just been released in the last few months, like Afrilounge – Lux Dementia. Here’s a few tracks I knew/remember hearing on Saturday night…

March 3, 2008

QBH has changed a lot since I was last there for the TransAtlantic6:Yellow party with Adam Beyer & Joel Mull in 2004. It seems much more opened up and brighter. It had a better vibe before, felt more like a club, darker and less like an aircraft hanger. It’s a great space for large parties though, however I never thought I would say this, but, I prefer a venue like the tiny cave in Chinese Laundry for it’s intimate vibe much more than big parties/venues now. Seeing Steve Bug at both venues mentioned here over two days really confirmed this for me.

The sound at QBH is good, but not amazing. You really have to find the right spot, there’s too much bass close to the stage, and not enough at the edges of the dance floor. I think it’s missing mid range maybe too. There was a very noticable audio quality improvement between Steve Bug with his Traktor Scratch setup and Sven with vinyl records, could have been just an increase of volume level maybe?

Lighting and projections/visuals are nice, although with that big white wall behind the stage, it makes for a very bright dance floor/club.

With expensive drink prices and $5 per item cloak charge (it was cold, we had jackets) we had to double take we were in Melbourne not Sydney.

The crowds at Melbourne techno parties have really changed over the years, and not for the better. I’ve been to many big techno parties in Melbourne since the late 1990s. Where have all the smiles gone? There were too many far gone, trashed people with really short attention spans constantly moving on/off the dance floor at this. Where’s the dancing? Where’s the Melbourne shuffle gone? Where’s the sustained music focus? Younger crowds huh! I’ve not been knocked about and bashed into that much, by as many rude people (no one says sorry) at a dance event since being in Barcelona last year. It really felt like there was a conspiracy for as many people to bump into us as much as possible.

Onto the music…

Steve Bug was already playing as we arrived just before 12. I guess he’s not really used to playing to an empty dance floor, and being the warm-up DJ anymore. I think it may have thrown him off balance somewhat. He played nice tracks, but in all the wrong order I felt, the flow was disjointed. It sounded like a struggle between wanting to play peak time tracks and having to play warm-up tracks. It was quite dissapointing, he was so much better in Sydney the next night.

Sven Vath was up next, for 3 hours. First hour was nice minimal/tech-house sounds. Next hour was harder, darker minimal/techno stuff, but somewhat bland, too many Dubfire tracks, I didn’t know much of what he played at the time. The last hour was crazy electro/synthetic German style stuff, think Alter Ego, then into some warm, fluffy house stuff to end off with. It was a nice journey of sounds.

He’s a very entertaining DJ to watch, such a trash-bag attention whore. I mean that in a good way. It’s amazing he can keep all his mixes together so tight with that all that behaviour. He really loves to party, he brings the party! As I mentioned last year, the vinyl is a big part of his performances, fanning himself with records, and waving them around above his head… Speaking of his head, he did the make a turban out of your ubercoolische tight white t-shirt trick, so his buffed, waxed chest was on show for all, you have to laugh. He was much more subdued in Frankfurt last year, played more interesting sounds too. Glad I saw him again though, he’s a legend. Didn’t make it to his Sydney performances.

Gui Boratto playing live out of an Apple laptop had a tough time following on from Sven, and playing to a 5am crowd who were finding it hard to stay focused. I was expecting big things after all the hype about Gui’s off-the-hook performance in Sydney the week before at Chinese Laundry. To be blunt, I found him really boring, and I’m a big fan of his productions, and have bought many of them both on vinyl and mp3. I didn’t recognise anything he played until about 40 minutes in, and the sounds of ‘Gate 7’ rolled in, but by then he had already lost me. I was really hoping to hear ‘Decay’ but it never came. Not sure if he was having technical troubles, but transitions between sounds/tracks didn’t go smooth and he was heads down in his laptop screen and controller the whole performance. Much of his set reminded me of his track with Martin Eyerer ‘The Beach’ which has a nice deep minimal beauty, but for me is much more of a listening to than dance-floor style track. I felt with what he played he was being too intricate for a crowd who just wanted more doof doof. He needed to have started with more intensity, not slowly build up to it. He would have worked better being on before Sven, or even Steve. Probably should have seen him at Chinese Laundry in Sydney, would have worked better for his minimal sounds.

It was cool to go to another Melbourne party, but it wasn’t really a special night, surprising with such a good line-up.

March 2, 2008

On Friday/Saturday Joanne and I had a nice little get-away in Melbourne. The main reason we went to Mexico, was to go to a techno party on Friday night at QBH, featuring Steve Bug, Sven Vath and Gui Boratto [live]. It’s always fun to spend time in Melbourne, funky shops, great food, nice relaxed vibe, friendly people, and it’s lovely to catch up with our Melbourne friends.

We got a really cheap, last minute, return air-fare and accomodation deal through VirginBlue, staying a night at the Jasper Hotel. It’s quite nice, It looks like an old hotel that’s had a trendy colourful make-over. We stayed on the lime green 8th floor, in room 808, how very techno! We were on the Queen Victoria Market facing side, so come Saturday morning we were woken by lots of noise from below. Paying extra for late check out, allowing for a sleep-in, was well worth it, we didn’t get in until near 6am after the party.

We had some great food in Melbourne, as you do. We had excellent Japanese for lunch on Friday at the little hidden away gem, that is Yu-U. For dinner we ate at Bistro Vue at Vue De Monde and had delicious Jamon, Foie Gras and amazing Wagyu beef. On Sunday we caught up with friends and ate a late breakfast at one of our fave Brunswick Street, Fitroy cafes Babka Bakery Cafe. It’s always great to eat some yummy Trampoline gelato when in Melbourne too, such amazing flavours. Try the lickrish, and peanut nutter flavours, awesome! The lemon and pistachio are still my faves. I think I like this gelato even better than Adelaide’s Alfrescos gelato now.

It’s fun in Melbourne to catch the trams around, a novelty for us Sydney folk, and check out all the groovy little shops in the arcades in the city, up and down Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, and in the massive Melbourne Central complex. I’ve missed checking out shops up/down around Chappel Street, and Greville Street Prahran/South Yarra the last few visits to Melbourne, must do that next time.

Joanne scored some chocolates, jewellery and was very excited to find and buy an FM3 Buddha Machine (see my post about Robert Henke’s Layering Buddha below). I scored a couple of ubercoolische t-shirts, but failed again on finding any sneakers I like in Melbourne. On Saturday afternoon we got very distracted by all the amazing gormet foods in the Simon Johnson store. The 70% dark chocolate Chocolate Santander brand we got from there was awesome. Made for some intense dreams that night.

I’ve been to Melbourne so many times now I’ve lost count. It’s always an enjoyable place to visit.